Re: Parts of Speech - how many?

>
>Yes, and about simplifying an existing system much has been said.
>But: What if somebody wants to create an artlang just for himself,
>saying: I want more parts of speech! Many ways of minimizing and
>combining parts of speech have been pointed out. What, on the
>contrary, is the known, thought or perceived maximum for their
>number and diversity? Sounds like a stupid question? Maybe. But
>since its about artistic freedom of conlanging, this list
>should be the right place to discuss it. ;-)
>
>Harald
>:-))
Well, I posted the other day indicating I was considering a language with
more parts of speech, but I haven't made one yet.

Notionally of course every word could be its own part of speech, showing
idiosyncratic behaviours, but such a language would be very cumbersome in
practice, which is no doubt why we have parts of speech.

I tripped over an English word which I think is the only one-word member of
its part of speech a few months back: _evens_.  It's a ratio: it can be
used in all the same contexts as can _three-to-one_ or _seven-to-two
against_, etc., and only those contexts, so far as I can make out.  I've
seen it cited in dictionaries as a noun, and adjective and an adverb (the
traditional catch-all), but it's clearly really none of those.  (I mention
this mostly to point out that English, and I suspect most languages, have a
lot of minor parts of speech that aren't usually recognised.)

Ian

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